To share, or not to share? Examining the emotional consequences of social sharing in the case of anger and sadness.

Previous research has shown the relation between social sharing and emotional processing to be notoriously complex. In the present study, we unraveled this complexity by, for the first time, taking 3 key aspects of this relation into account simultaneously: the nature of the emotion, the timing of possible sharing effects, and the multicomponential character of emotions. Using the day reconstruction method, we first identified an intense anger or sadness target episode for each participant. In a second phase, participants repeatedly reported their sharing behavior and intensity of different emotion components over 5 days. Growth curve analyses revealed that sharing anger leads to several immediate and delayed beneficial effects, whereas sharing sadness leads to limited positive effects that emerge later on. This implies that all 3 aspects under study, as well as their interplay, are of critical importance in the relation between sharing and emotional processing.

[1]  Cheryl L. Carmichael,et al.  Are you happy for me? How sharing positive events with others provides personal and interpersonal benefits. , 2010, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[2]  William J. Whelton.  Emotional processes in psychotherapy: evidence across therapeutic modalities , 2004 .

[3]  W. Stroebe,et al.  Grief work, disclosure and counseling: do they help the bereaved? , 2005, Clinical psychology review.

[4]  David Sander,et al.  A systems approach to appraisal mechanisms in emotion , 2005, Neural Networks.

[5]  A. Kappas,et al.  Emotion and Regulation are One! , 2011 .

[6]  Ira J. Roseman,et al.  Phenomenology , Behaviors , and Goals Differentiate Discrete Emotions , 2004 .

[7]  K. Scherer,et al.  Appraisal processes in emotion: Theory, methods, research. , 2001 .

[8]  M. Brewer,et al.  Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin , 2022 .

[9]  T. Scheff.  Catharsis and other heresies: A theory of emotion. , 2007 .

[10]  D. Kahneman,et al.  A Comparison of Affect Ratings Obtained with Ecological Momentary Assessment and the Day Reconstruction Method , 2010, Social indicators research.

[11]  J. Frattaroli.  Experimental disclosure and its moderators: a meta-analysis. , 2006, Psychological bulletin.

[12]  R. Lazarus.  Progress on a cognitive-motivational-relational theory of emotion. , 1991, The American psychologist.

[13]  R. McNally,et al.  Does Early Psychological Intervention Promote Recovery From Posttraumatic Stress? , 2003, Psychological science in the public interest : a journal of the American Psychological Society.

[14]  Ross A. Thompson,et al.  Emotion and Emotion Regulation: Two Sides of the Developing Coin , 2011 .

[15]  Anna Wierzbicka,et al.  Defining Emotion Concepts , 1992, Cogn. Sci..

[16]  Klaus R. Scherer,et al.  Oxford Companion to Emotion and the Affective Sciences , 2009 .

[17]  Babak Falsafi,et al.  To Share or Not To Share? , 2007, VLDB.

[18]  J. Pennebaker.  Telling Stories: The Health Benefits of Narrative , 2000, Literature and medicine.

[19]  Bernard Rimé,et al.  The temporal evolution of social sharing of emotions and its consequences on emotional recovery: a longitudinal study. , 2012, Emotion.

[20]  N. Frijda.  The laws of emotion. , 1988, The American psychologist.

[21]  Jeanne C. Watson,et al.  How and When Does Emotional Expression Help? , 2001 .

[22]  A. Stanton,et al.  Expressing Emotions in Stressful Contexts , 2012 .

[23]  I. M. Wetzer,et al.  Consequences of socially sharing emotions: Testing the emotion-response congruency hypothesis , 2007 .

[24]  Amy M. Bippus.  Recipients' criteria for evaluating the skillfulness of comforting communication and the outcomes of comforting interactions , 2001 .

[25]  P. Fernández-Berrocal,et al.  It's not that bad: Social challenges to emotional disclosure enhance adjustment to stress , 2004 .

[26]  Craig A. Smith,et al.  Appraisal theory: Overview, assumptions, varieties, controversies. , 2001 .

[27]  S. Nolen-Hoeksema,et al.  One versus many: Capturing the use of multiple emotion regulation strategies in response to an emotion-eliciting stimulus , 2013, Cognition & emotion.

[28]  S. Koole.  The psychology of emotion regulation: An integrative review , 2009 .

[29]  J. Littrell.  The Status of Freud's Legacy on Emotional Processing: Contemporary Revisions , 2008 .

[30]  Francis Tuerlinckx,et al.  The relation between event processing and the duration of emotional experience. , 2011, Emotion.

[31]  R. Lazarus.  Relational meaning and discrete emotions. , 2001 .

[32]  M. Mehl,et al.  Handbook of research methods for studying daily life , 2012 .

[33]  Craig A. Smith,et al.  Appraisal components, core relational themes, and the emotions , 1993 .

[34]  J. Smyth,et al.  Written emotional expression: effect sizes, outcome types, and moderating variables. , 1998, Journal of consulting and clinical psychology.

[35]  D. Betsy McCoach,et al.  Using Time-Varying Covariates in Multilevel Growth Models , 2010, Front. Psychology.

[36]  K. Scherer,et al.  Appraisal Theories of Emotion: State of the Art and Future Development , 2013 .

[37]  M. Mehl,et al.  Expressive Writing Can Impede Emotional Recovery Following Marital Separation , 2013, Clinical psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

[38]  Peter Kuppens,et al.  The appraisal basis of anger: specificity, necessity and sufficiency of components. , 2003, Emotion.

[39]  V. Helgeson,et al.  Sex Differences in Coping Behavior: A Meta-Analytic Review and an Examination of Relative Coping , 2002 .

[40]  N. Frijda,et al.  Relations among emotion, appraisal, and emotional action readiness , 1989 .

[41]  W. Stiles,et al.  Correlations of male college students' verbal response mode use in psychotherapy with measures of psychological disturbance and psychotherapy outcome. , 1981, Journal of consulting and clinical psychology.

[42]  B. Rimé.  Emotion Elicits the Social Sharing of Emotion: Theory and Empirical Review , 2009 .

[43]  Does disclosure of emotions facilitate recovery from bereavement? Evidence from two prospective studies. , 2002, Journal of consulting and clinical psychology.

[44]  Matthew D. Lieberman,et al.  Subjective Responses to Emotional Stimuli During Labeling, Reappraisal, and Distraction , 2011, Emotion.

[45]  Frédéric Nils,et al.  Beyond the myth of venting: Social sharing modes determine the benefits of emotional disclosure , 2012 .

[46]  Joshua M. Smyth,et al.  Written emotional expression : Effect sizes, outcome types, and moderating variables , 1998 .

[47]  D. Kahneman,et al.  A Survey Method for Characterizing Daily Life Experience: The Day Reconstruction Method , 2004, Science.